Daugherty: Dolphins/Don Jones exemplify troubling trend

I don't read about sports to attend church. I don't know anyone who does.

Only now, it seems as if that's all I'm doing. Who needs pastors when we have the sports pages, traditional and virtual?

From Dan Snyder to Don Sterling to Augusta National Golf Club, we've been told how to think and behave, by those who would presume to know. They are preaching tolerance, or at least their brand of it, which amounts to this:

I will tolerate your point of view, as long as it's in line with mine.

Now, we have an incident involving Michael Sam. He is the first openly gay player attempting a career in the NFL. When the St. Louis Rams gave him that opportunity Saturday, drafting him in the seventh round, Sam kissed his partner in celebration.

Right about then, a backup Miami Dolphins defensive back named Don Jones decided to tweet his reaction:

''Omg'' was one. "horrible'' quickly followed.

Well.

Justice was swift. The Dolphins fined Jones. They cut him loose from the team, until he attends sensitivity training. Jones deleted the tweets, and offered an apology for being a human being and making a human mistake.

He didn't elaborate on what those Dolphins "values'' are. Presumably, they're similar to the "values'' of every other NFL team: Win enough games to keep the suites full. Succeed enough that fans will excuse off-field affronts to the values. Prize the values highly, until they interfere with winning and leasing suites.

That's somewhat off topic here, though.

Do you punish Jones for what he tweeted? To the extent the Dolphins have?

I mean, sensitivity training?

There is context here, certainly. The Dolphins already had been smeared by the bullying last fall of Jonathan Martin, most notably by teammate Richie Incognito. That embarrassed their owner, Stephen Ross, to the extent that Ross backed an anti-bullying bill in the Florida legislature.

The franchise didn't need another crisis of character. Understood. But we're not all going to think alike. That's never been a goal in this country, as far as I can tell. The issue of same-sex relationships is hot button, and not just in the hyper-macho land of professional football. Everywhere.

Jones isn't a radical. Lots of people think the way Don Jones thinks. Do they all need to be re-educated, too?

Are we to be proud of a country that practices selective tolerance?

Or afraid of it?

In narrow focus, this incident shows again that athletes and Twitter are not always a fun couple. Social media is instant media, without an editor. It's trouble for anyone with a cell phone and a hair trigger. When in doubt, don't tweet it out.

The larger landscape, though, is about what's permissible to say, and what isn't. Jones didn't yell "Fire!'' in a crowded theatre. He gave life to a sentiment that, unfortunately, remains widely held. For that, his employer has decided he needs to get his mind right.

Tolerance is as tolerance does. The Dolphins could have taken a different approach. Jones wasn't advocating overthrowing the government. The team could have said, "We don't agree with or condone what you said. But we will allow you your right to say it.''

They could have fined Jones. They even could have suspended him, briefly. Demanding he attend re-education as a condition of his return to the team violates the sentiment the team is trying to encourage.

I wish Michael Sam the best. He has guts. I hope they're rewarded with universal open-mindedness. Is he a good man? That's all that really matters.